You Would Take Benjamin Away
by Signy1
Summary: Mrs. Eunice Howell has had, all things considered, a charmed life. She has always been wealthy, and cosseted, and spoiled, first by doting parents, then by a loving husband. She has never been denied anything she needed or wanted. Except for the one thing that mattered. Episode tag to 'My Fair Gilligan.'


Author's note: Episode tag to 'My Fair Gilligan.' I suspect that, even given the overall comedic tone of the show, offstage, where even the audience could not intrude, something along these lines would have happened. Would almost have to have happened. The title is taken from the Biblical story of Jacob; faced with the potential loss of his youngest son, he cries out in anguish, 'Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and now you would take Benjamin away!'

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

She watches them from the door; the others are gathered around the man who was no longer her son, clapping him on the back, congratulatory and smiling, and his own smile was broader than any of theirs. She does not cry, because she is a _Howell_ , damn it all, and she was a Wentworth before that, and if her gracious exterior is hiding anything less than serenity and confidence, then it will, by God, stay hidden.

She smiles gently, even as the Skipper produces that dreadful, battered white cap from his pocket and hands it to Gilligan, who immediately puts it on, beaming. It doesn't at all go with the outfit he's wearing, the one she had tailored to fit him, each stitch put into place with her own two hands. Properly dressed for the first time in her experience, he had looked so handsome. He had looked like a Howell. He had looked like _hers._

But he dons that horrid, plebeian little hat as though it were something to be proud of, and his eyes sparkle beneath the bent rim, and all at once he looks like himself. He looks like himself in a way he had not while dwelling beneath their roof, beneath their aegis.

He was not, she had to admit to herself, precisely the son she had wanted. The son she wanted would have been put into her arms, tiny and new and needing her. And she would have been there for him, day and night. She would have taught him everything. He would have grown up gracious and assured and beloved. He would never have known a moment, no, not a single moment, when he was not a Howell, with all that implied, and he would always have known, bone-deep, that he was valued and valuable in ways that went far, far beyond mere money. He would have been _hers_ , and no one, not God or the Devil, would have been able to take that away.

Twenty years of increasingly bitter disappointments later, she understood that the son she had wanted, the son she still dreamed about, was never going to be a reality. But Gilligan was a dear boy. She knew that he had the kindest of hearts. She could have asked no more of her dream-child. He was not… quite… a Howell. Not yet. But he tried so hard, and she would have taught him everything. He would have learned. In time, he would have become a Howell. Valued. Valuable. And _hers._

And he had rejected that. He had rejected her. He had rejected the man she could have taught him to be and the life she could have given him. It hurts. It hurts the way it had when each month brought a new token of failure, the way it had when supercilious doctors asked questions she could not bear to answer and gave her answers she could not bear to believe. It hurt the way it had when the last flickering, guttering flashes of hope had to be put aside forever. But she is a Howell, and she was a Wentworth before that, and she stands serenely in the doorway with her husband's arm around her, and she does not cry.

She will cry, she knows. She will grieve for yet another lost chance, another lost future, another lost son. She will cry, bitterly and often, in the silent dark, when she is alone. When Thurston, who, as she knows quite well, feels things as deeply as she, even if he doesn't care to show it, is not there to suffer in seeing her suffering. She will comfort him when he mourns those same lost possibilities, and she will be his unwavering support when he needs her to be, and she will be weak when he needs to feel strong, but she will not let him see the depths of her pain, the aching of her empty arms and her overflowing heart. This is a wound he cannot heal, and this is a grief the balm for which cannot be bought or sold. No, she does not cry. Not just then. There will be time enough for that later.

She has the rest of her life, after all.


End file.
